THIS is either the most auspicious moment for a show about killer monkeys or maybe the absolute worst time in human memory for such a debut – considering the horrible attack last week by the mad chimp who was shot dead by the Stamford police.

The new Animal Planet show, “Dark Days in Monkey City,” based on the Smithsonian’s long-running study of primates, proves once and for all that feral animals aren’t house pets – quite graphically.

This innovative series is more than the sum of its “Meerkat Manor“-ish parts. Not a straight-forward study of tribal monkeys who live around grand, abandoned temples in Sri Lanka, this is more like a graphic novel – enhanced by something called superimposition chroma key. Huh? Think the movie “300” – computer-generated surrealism without the need for Salvador Dali.

“Dark Days” involves two tribes of mean-ass toque macaques, (pronounced “ma-kacks”) in an area called Monkey City.

In the first episode, we meet the major players, including the head monkey King Lear, Portia (a submissive troop member with the courage of a king) and Hector, who wants Lear’s throne.

Like some British TV production about the royal family, there are great betrayals, coups involving a king’s closest lieutenants, and, yes, even royal affairs.

Since the show is “inspired by actual macaque behavior,” the scenario isn’t perfectly true to life.

The action is written as a grand adventure story – exaggerated by the graphic novel effects – and narrated by Welsh actor John Rhys-Davies.

If you accept that this is all a fictional scenario using real footage, what doesn’t make a whit of sense is that dropped into the middle of it all is the real-life nerdy Wolfgang Dittus, Ph.D., who occasionally breaks the fourth wall to give us brief lessons on macaque societal mores and behavior patterns.

Talk about a show-stopper. It’s like Margaret Mead dropping into “The Hills.”